On Wednesday, the Arkansas Senate approved an unconstitutional bill to ban abortion as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. As The Nation’s Lee Fang noted Friday, this is part of a larger strategy by chief sponsor Sen. Jason Rapert (R) to remake America as a arch-conservative country.

Rapert explained his long-term goals in a racist 2011 rant at a Tea Party rally, as he bashed President Obama for hosting a Ramadan celebration:

RAPERT: I hear you loud and clear, Barack Obama. You don’t represent the country that I grew up with. And your values is [sic] not going to save us. We’re going to take this country back for the Lord. We’re going to try to take this country back for conservatism. And we’re not going to allow minorities to run roughshod over what you people believe in!

Watch the video:

Rapert’s other proposals include amending the U.S. Constitution to give state legislatures control of the federal debt limit and for the absolute elimination of all parole for state prisoners.

A new report by Mother Jones reveals that James B. Taylor, a prominent conservative movement leader and board member for the Young America’s Foundation, once served as vice president of a white supremacist group.

Taylor’s bio notes that he is “chairman of World Youth Crusade [for Freedom] and former executive director and chief of staff of Young America’s Foundation.” It also includes that he was once public relations director for the anti-labor union National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. It does not mention, however, that he also served as vice president of the National Policy Institute, a tax-exempt group than aims to be the lobby for “White Americans—our country’s historic majority and founding population—the people that bears the unique heritage of Europe, Christianity, cultural excellence, and the scientific awakening.” During Taylor’s time with the group, the white-nationalist foundation, founded in 2005 by right-wing publisher William Regnery, published a report arguing that “integration and the civil rights movement led directly to the destruction of great cities; and to millions of whites suffering terrible injustices, including assault, robbery, rape and murder, and losing everything they had through the ensuing destruction of their neighborhoods and their property values.”

Taylor did not respond to Mother Jones’ request for comment, but when asked about his connection to the National Policy Institute by a local newspaper last August, defended the mission of the group, saying: “You’ve got the NAACP and B’nai B’rith. Why not something for white people?”

The Young America Foundation, on whose nine-member board of directors Taylor sits, is a powerful force in the conservative movement. The group runs the Ronald Reagan ranch in Santa Barbara, CA, helped create the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), and operates a center aimed at teaching journalists “the values of balanced, responsible, and accurate reporting.” Twice-defeated former Sen. George Allen (R-VA) and former Attorney General Edwin Meese (R) are both affiliated with the organization.

As chairman of the World Youth Crusade for Freedom, which claims to “promote education and research in public policy and understanding by future world leaders,” Taylor received $18,000 in salary in 2010, out of the $23,191 the group took in in total revenue. In 2010, he was paid $22,000 out of the group’s $31,129 raised.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Taylor was a 2012 contributor to Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA). Barletta has come under fire for racist comments of his own — announcing this week that he will oppose immigration reform because Latinos are uneducated leeches who will never vote Republican anyway. The donation record identifies Taylor’s current occupation as “editor” for Tea Party Express, a key force in the Tea Party movement.

Students at Towson University are pushing for the right to create a “White Student Union” on campus to celebrate white culture and “create a safe space” for victimized white students, according to would-be founder Matthew Heimbach.

Heimbach used to be the president of Towson’s Youth for Western Civilization chapter, which was disbanded in March 2012 after members scrawled “White Pride” all over campus. He now insists that a White Student Union is not about white supremacy, but akin to a black student union or an LGBT group. Heimbach told the Towson newspaper that white students face discrimination at the university:

We essentially want to replicate what every student union does on campus. You have a Black student Union who promotes black heroes, we want to do the same thing. We’d also want to create a safe space for members who have filed hate/bias reports and who have had anti-white language used against them. Especially the female members who have heard ‘cracker’ and ‘honkie,’ and nothing has ever come of it. It’s a support network for a campus that is hostile toward white students.

Heimbach’s former club called itself a “right wing youth movement” fighting “radical multiculturism.” He claims 17 students have approached him with interest in a White Student Union, and he has met with the Student Government Association adviser about the club’s potential.

Arizona House candidate Jesse Kelly (R) refused to discuss his endorsement from a white supremacist group during an interview with KGUN9 News this week, claiming the question about it was “completely out of bounds.”

When the anchor began to ask Kelly why he accepted the endorsement from political action group Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC), a controversial organization linked to neo-Nazi groups, Kelly’s campaign spokesman jumped in to cut her off, saying the question was “not unacceptable” because it was “not recent.” When the anchor persisted, Kelly echoed his spokesman’s sentiment:

KELLY: It was in 2010. This election is about jobs, and the economy, and lower gas prices. Frankly it’s completely out of bounds.

Watch it:

However, although both Kelly and his spokesman are referring to the endorsement from AILPAC during the 2010 race that Kelly ran against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), the group actually renewed their endorsement of Kelly just last week. Kelly is currently running again to replace Giffords’ spot now that she is stepping down.

It’s unclear whether Kelly actively sought out the group’s endorsement, or whether he received it unsolicited. And, to be clear, Kelly should not be blamed for someone’s unsolicited decision to endorse him. He is accountable, however, for declining to distance himself from the group when given the opportunity to do so during the KGUN9 interview.

Last month, the conservative National Review fired its longtime contributor John Derbyshire after Derbyshire published a column in another publication instructing parents on how to train their children to be racists. Although the National Review did the right thing in eventually firing Derbyshire, it published the author for years despite a long history of racist and sexist views. Derbyshire argued in 2009 that women should not vote, and he proclaimed as far back as 2003 that he is a proud “racist.”

Derbyshire, however, appears to have learned nothing from his high-profile firing. In a column for the white nationalist site VDARE.com, Derbyshire offers unqualified praise for white supremacy:

The enemies of conservatism are eager to supply their own nomenclature. “White Supremacist” seems to be their current favorite. It is meant maliciously, of course, to bring up images of fire-hoses, attack dogs, pick handles, and segregated lunch counters—to imply that conservatives, especially non-mainstream conservatives, are cruel people with dark thoughts.

Leaving aside the intended malice, I actually think “White Supremacist” is not bad semantically. White supremacy, in the sense of a society in which key decisions are made by white Europeans, is one of the better arrangements History has come up with. There have of course been some blots on the record, but I don’t see how it can be denied that net-net, white Europeans have made a better job of running fair and stable societies than has any other group.

As a reminder, this man who now openly praises a racial caste system wrote for one of the nation’s top conservative publications for nearly 12 years.

On a day set aside to honor civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., Mitt Romney plans to tout his extreme immigration positions during a campaign stop in South Carolina today — with Kris Kobach, the author of Arizona’s and Alabama’s immigration laws, at his side. He will attack his competitors Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry for their softer immigration stances, which could resonate with South Carolina voters who support that state’s harmful immigration law.

“Mitt Romney stands apart from the others. He’s the only one who’s taken a strong across-the-board position on immigration,” Kobach said, and he told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that Romney was much farther to the right on illegal immigration than his fellow presidential candidates. Watch:

Considering Kobach’s own opinions and associations, however, his endorsement may not be one Romney wants to tout.

Before he became Kansas’ secretary of state, Kobach worked for Immigration Reform Law Institute, the legal branch of Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled as a “nativist hate group.” One of FAIR’s main goals is to overturn the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which “ended a decades-long, racist quota system that limited immigration mostly to northern Europeans.” FAIR’s founder John Tanton has said that he wants the U.S. to remain a majority-white nation through limiting the number of non-whites who enter the U.S.

When Arizona’s SB 1070, Kobach, in emails to then-state Sen. Russell Pierce (R), pushed for the law to be used to cast a wide net against Latinos. He helped write an even more harmful immigration law for Alabama, which effectively made it illegal to live as an undocumented immigrant in the state. And when Kobach ran for Congress in 2004, he lost by an 11-point margin after his opponent accused him of having ties to white supremacists. (While campaigning, he was working on a FAIR lawsuit against Kansas’ law granting in-state tuition to the children of undocumented immigrants; the suit was dismissed.) Kobach even once wrote a book opposing the anti-Apartheid boycott of South Africa.

Romney proudly said he “look[ed] forward” to working with Kobach on stopping illegal immigration, and Kobach has been equally effusive of Romney, saying, “Mitt Romney is the candidate who will finally secure the borders and put a stop to the magnets,” when announcing his support. Again and again, Romney has proven how hardline he is on immigration, and Kobach’s support continues to reinforce it.

Romney’s views on immigration are radical even in a field of candidates who appear to be competing to take the most radical views on this subject. But as extreme as Romney’s immigration stances have been, campaigning with an anti-immigrant official with ties to a hate group on Martin Luther King Day is beyond the pale.